Ibiza was something else. You read all about the party island and think – no way – sounds totally over the top. An island can’t be party central practically 24 hours a day … but it is.

I’m getting way too old for something like this but to my surprise I had an fab-tastic time – thanks to great company and amazing weather. The doosh doosh music of the island even started to grow on me by the time we left! 🙂

Lots and lots more photos here.

When?	Late Aug 2008
Weather	Temps ranging from 23 degrees min in the evening to 30 degress max during the day. Nearly all clear cloudless blue skies. Couldn’t have asked for more.

The Experience

We had a fairly disastrous start to our trip to Ibiza. I guess the signs were there. At Gatwick the fire alarms went off in the food court which meant that the upper section of the airport, where all the restaurants and many shops were, was shut for about half an hour. I guess it could have been worse. It could have meant an evacuation of the whole airport and us missing our flight! But this minor hiccup was resolved and eventually we got our dinner and on to our plane.

I hate Easy Jet and Ryan Air simply because of the cattle rush to get on the plane. Normally with one or two of you its not too much of a problem and wouldn’t phase me but we had seven people (!) to seat together. Its unbelievable how rude some people can be about boarding too. Erin and Olli somehow managed to get on to the plane first to keep six seats free. Unfortunately I was lucky last on to the plane and had to sit by myself. Heh heh. Not that I minded … I soon found out that I was seated next to two Greeks! What are the chances?!! The two boys were quite funny actually and entertained me for most of the trip.

Finding accommodation, which was reasonably priced but not totally disgusting, in Ibiza for six people was pretty darn difficult. We ended up going with one of the Fiesta Group Hotels on the Playa d’en Bossa side of Ibiza called Fiesta Hotel d’en Bossa. Most of the flights to and from London to Ibiza seem to party flights – arriving just in time to go out and hit the clubs (1.30am) and departing around that time too. So, arriving at a hotel at 1.30am in the morning the last thing you want to hear is that your booking has been cancelled! Uh oh! We weren’t at all pleased. The hotel guy wasn’t all that helpful and I’m sure the Spanish/English barrier wasn’t helping matters any. He “called” some other hotels in the same chain of hotels but, surprise surprise, on a Friday bank holiday weekend there was no availability. All he could tell us was that the Director would walk in through the doors at 7am. Ridiculous. So I mentioned there were seven of us but we had accommodation for six only. That’s because Olli, James B’s friend, was a late minute addition – the boy had bought his flight but hadn’t arranged any accommodation. I think he was relying on us being nice enough to let him bunk in to one of our rooms. So, having this seventh person there also added to the confusion. At any rate we had no choice really but to start looking for accommodation – getting on to the internet, getting on to our mobiles. Really not what we wanted to be doing at that time of the night/morning. Finally, at 4am the hotel guy says by some miracle our booking has been “found” at Fiesta Club d’en Bossa – the hotel next door. Excuse me. Our booking has been found … at a hotel where we didn’t make a booking? Holy miracle indeed. Luckily for Olli the Club rooms are a lot bigger than the Hotel so he squeezed in with Caroline, James B and I. Pauline, Erin and James C were in the other room.

But I’ve spent way too much time talking about this disaster!

Day 1

Despite getting to bed at 4.30am we all, admittedly rather bleary-eyed, still managed to get up in time for our included breakfast a few hours later. It was tough but the promise of the hot buffet was irresistible on our first day in Ibiza. The buffet at the hotel wasn’t too bad with cereals, breads, English breakfast type food (eggs, sausages, bacon etc.), fruit and an area where you could get omelettes (the biggest omelettes I’ve ever been served by the way) and crepes freshly cooked. Plus juice and tea and coffee.

Getting a bit of food in our stomachs actually served to wake us up quite a bit and, with a bit of encouraging, most of us were ready to go explore Ibiza Town. Getting around Ibiza isn’t that easy without your own car (or moped or some form of transport) – sure there are buses but these proved to take way too long and didn’t really come all that often so other than our first day we ended up taking taxis for the rest of the trip. Not that we really did much travelling – just going to and from San Antonio which was another side of the island.

If you look up what there is “to do” in Ibiza the lists will be filled with nothing much outside of night clubs and beaches! One of the few non-club and beach items on the list is Ibiza Town (the capital of Ibiza and locally called Eivissa) which is very pretty with lots of
funky shops. It was strange seeing, as we travelled there, how Ibiza has developed. It hasn’t really! We’d drive past a nice area, and then there would be a whole or just a really run down bit, and then a nice area and then a run down bit. Quite strange. Ibiza Town, naturally, was one of the nicer areas. The obvious thing to head for when you get to Ibiza Town is in the cobbled streets of the old town – the walled old city D’Alt Vila which is a winding walk up to the peak of the hill and the Cathedral which sits majestically overlooking the port and the coast. Really great views from up there but it can be hard work. The two most re-known nightclubs, Pacha and El Divino, are also located in Ibiza Town but we didn’t see either of them during our stroll. Our walk to the top on a very hot day nearly did us in so when we came back down we decided to grab a light lunch before heading back to the hotel to spend the afternoon on the beach in front of our hotel. James B and Olli got into the water but before we knew it they came back because James B had gotten stung by jelly fish! Poor lad. The worst thing was that bar staff wouldn’t even give him any ice so he had to make do with ice cold drinks on the sting instead.

After the sun started going down we headed over to Bora Bora Beach bar for a few drinks. We got to there at just after 5 and it was still pumping. Bora Bora is reputed to be the best beach bar in the world. This open air club was definitely in party mode when we got there but I have to say there wasn’t anything that seemed to set it apart from any other beach bar except perhaps the atmosphere – something which is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway. Say its great and they will come. Ya know? In the middle of this I was also trying to arrange to meet up with Amelia who had come Ibiza with a bunch of her friends and were staying at a hotel next to us. Unfortunately they were heading out to Bora Bora just as we were heading back to our hotel for dinner. Also included in our hotel price! We arranged to meet instead the next day by our hotel pool.

At dinner I seriously overate. By the time I was done I was nearly ready for sleep! But there would be none of that as we were heading into San Antonio to go to es paradis. Before heading to the club we started with the West End – which is the main bar strip in San Antonio. Basically this area seemed to be lined with lots of cheesy bars with staff offering all sorts of cheap drinks deals for you to come in. We moved from bar to bar getting free shots, 2 for 1 drinks etc. which is a fun way to work your way up the strip. We finally settled on one 80s place where we got a whole bottle of alcohol for free! This meant a whole lot of shots that we could free pour ourselves. Very scary! Unfortunately, for one of the funniest moments of the night, I didn’t have my camera on me! There was this one girl at the club, a patron not an employee, who was dressed in what was essentially strips of cloth across her upper half and a mini skirt (think school girl) on her lower half. Okay this is Ibiza – fair enough. And then she started doing this whole exposing her tits and fingering her nipples thing for all the dirty men taking photos of her. So skanky I actually felt embarrassed for her. We were almost having too good a time at this bar where both Erin and Caroline were making requests of the DJ but we eventually moved on to es paradis.

On Saturday nights es paradise turns into a Water Party which in theory sounds good but which was very disappointing for us who couldn’t last past 5.30am! The website promised that in a 4,000 square meter garden a huge fountain with a central geyser suddenly lets loose with “80,000 litres of water, flooding the dance floor, turning it into an enormous pool in which you can dance, paddle and have fun with your friends till dawn.” There was even promise of jugglers and characters on stilts. Hmm … we lost James C and Pauline at about 2am as James could barely stand anymore, then Erin and Caroline at about 3.30am. Two hours later James B, Oli and I ended up leaving too. By then, at 5.30am, the only thing that had happened was a few sprinkles of water. I’m pretty sure if we’d hung around just another 15 mins or another half hour the promised water would have come but James B was wasted and couldn’t stand anymore! The club was actually a really nice club – really attractive inside and at first we were all psyched for a bit night out. We had exotic dancing girls dancing on a platform above us and relatively okay music but after a few hours of this it got boring real fast. The only thing that kept me there was talking some guys on the dance floor who I found out were also heading out to La Tomatina after Ibiza like us! Clubbing sure is hard work.

Day 2

Somehow everyone in my room managed to make it to breakfast and then I heard them
stumbling back into the room only for them to go back to sleep again. What a waste of sleep! For me it wasn’t worth getting up to eat only to go back to sleep so I just skipped it and savoured that extra half hour. Heh heh.

By about lunch time I was ready to tackle the day again. The other room and Caroline should have been okay since they got back to bed much earlier than James B, Olli and I did but I think they were more tired than us! However, by about 12 we had all dragged ourselves out to the pool. Amelia and her crew also met us there. We were lucky to get enough sun lounges on this day actually – seems that the practice is that you need to lay claim to the lounges very early in the day and I joked that after coming back from the clubs we should place our towels on the lounges. Sadly I think that’s exactly what we normally need to do to claim a lounge each!

It was an amazing afternoon pool-side. Day was fantastic and, despite the planes flying overhead (yes – someone thought it would be a great idea to have a flight path right over the top of the hotels), was very relaxing. The hotel also had “games” arranged for anyone interested in playing including beach volleyball, water polo and even a balloon throwing game which was actually quite funny. I’ve been too spoiled with my summer holidays this year!

After saying goodbye to Amelia’s lot (they were heading back to London) we headed off to dinner before getting ready for what was supposed to be our biggest night on the island at the biggest club – Space! It was We Love Space 08 for Sunday – in previous years this was a 22 hour party that started very early in the afternoon but this year could only start at 4.30pm. As we found out, unless you are on something, a few hours in the club is more than enough. At 55 euro a ticket we had huge expectations. As with other clubs, though, you need to start in a bar because with drinks being ridiculously expensive (a small 330ml bottle of water is 10 euro!) you need to get well liquored up on the outside! So, we started at a local bar which was offering 2-4-1 drinks on its cocktails.

At Space they had a who’s who list of DJs – none of whom I even recognised. Not a surprise since this kind of doosh doosh music is not my scene at all. (Olli the other hand was in DJ heaven!) You aren’t allowed any cameras in Space and upon entering you get quite a proper feel up as they search you for, ahem, illegal substances so even if you tried to smuggle a camera in I don’t know where you’d hide it (though somehow some people managed.) The search was more intense than any you normally get at the airport! We entered what seemed to be one of the main rooms and it was intense. Not an inch could we move and it was so hot I think Pauline was nearly going to pass out at one stage. The music was actually quite good when 2 Many DJ’s came on but after that it got rubbish and, to my ears, sounded like the same thing over and over. So boring! We took a wander through some of the other rooms but it was more of the same. By about 3 we’d all really had enough and headed back to our hotel, which was thankfully just across the road, for some much appreciated bed time. Oh – I forgot that Erin had some sort of stomach bug so couldn’t face coming to Space so she missed out unfortunately.

Day 3

Day 3 dawned bright so Pauline and I declared it beach day! Erin was still ill, Caroline was extremely tired and Olli wanted to sleep so James B, James C, Pauline and I were the only ones to make it to the beach. The two boys headed for a big walk up the beach so Pauline and I settled on to our sun lounges (6 euro per sun lounge and 6 euro per umbrellas) for most of the day. James C eventually came back to settle down with a book whilst James B took Olli into Ibiza Town for some shopping. We didn’t see Erin or Caroline until we headed out to dinner.

Its amazing how you can spend six hours on the beach and not even notice the time going by. We had a good session on the beach though I don’t think I added to my tan at all (not even my fried egg tan.) However I did indulge in what seems like a very Spanish thing to do – topless sunbathing! Ha ha.

On our last evening in Ibiza we decided to try and catch the sunset at Cafe Del Mar over at San Antonio. Unfortunately as we were too busy gorging ourselves on our last evening meal we just missed it – arriving in time to catch the last bits of it. Still it’s a very nice area down there by the bay. We caught up with a couple of Pauline’s friends before heading into the West End again. I wanted to check out Soul City for its R&B music and though I enjoyed the music I think the rest of them were pretty tired so we didn’t end up staying very long at all. So we started to head back to Playa at about midnight. Caroline and I just had to stop and ride this amusement ride though. I swear it that although it wasn’t scary it was downright sickening with its ups and downs. A fun thing to do on our last night in Ibiza and a nice memory before departing the island the following morning for Valencia.

Overall Ibiza was what I expected. A serious party island it is definitely for those hard core partiers (and also those with serious money to burn!) The thing that surprises me is that I actually want to go back and try out the rest of the clubs. I’ve heard that some of them offer some very interesting concepts which would be worth a look in such as Manumission’s Friday night Coney Island Revue. Check it out. Interesting no? 🙂